Bizarre WWE Star Bret Hart Offered To Lose His Title – TJR Wrestling

Perhaps the most unlikely star in history could have become WWE Champion if Bret Hart had succeeded in 1997.

The Montreal Screwjob is the most told story in wrestling history that culminated when Vince McMahon asked referee Earl Hebner to ring the bell during the Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels WWE title match at the Survivor Series 1997 with Michaels declared the winner.

Bret Hart hadn’t wanted to lose to Michaels since The Heartbreak Kid told his hated rival that he wouldn’t be willing to lose for him. With Hart heading to WCW after McMahon walked away from a 20-year contract for the star, many believed that McMahon needed to do whatever it took to take the WWE Championship away from Hart before he left.

But Bret Hart was offered to lose to absolutely anyone else in the company when he came out.

Bret Hart offered the WWE title to Brooklyn Brawler

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, perennial enhancing talent Brooklyn Brawler Steve Lombardi explained that Bret Hart even offered to lose the title to him before leaving the company:

Bret Hart told Vince, and you could ask Bret this. He said ‘I won’t drop the belt to Shawn Michaels’, that’s the Montreal Screwjob. “But I’m going to give it to Steve Lombardi.” And he said that, I quote him, and he would tell you, if you asked him, he would tell you that he said that. But of course Vince wouldn’t do it.

The brawler continued by noting that Hart told him he wouldn’t retire if they had wrestled, but Brawler warned that it would be him rather than The Hitman who took the blame:

He said to me, “If you fought me in The Garden, I wasn’t going to make it.” » I said, ‘You know what would have happened, Bret? I would have been fired. Because if I hadn’t gotten rid of my body for you, Vince would have said it was my fault for pinning you. He said: “It’s not fair. » I said, “Life isn’t fair. »

A WWE Title run for The Brooklyn Brawler never happened and the Montreal Screwjob is considered by many to be the launching pad of the Attitude Era as Vince McMahon emerged from the mess as a hated character.

h/t on the ropes